On April 13th, North Korea carried out its most recent act of defiance against the West, all of which past similar acts have been met not even with a slap on the wrist but with a stern finger-wag, by launching a ballistic missile, which subsequently exploded and fell apart in the Yellow Sea. This act, however, is quite different: for one, it “shot down” President Obama’s engagement policy with Pyongyang (as Chris McGreal cleverly quipped in The Guardian), and secondly it affirmed the West’s fears that Kim Jong-Un would proceed in the role his father and grandfather had laid out in the totalitarian state.… [Read more]